Albino
by keysmashtoinfinityandbeyond
Summary: Back in 1940, a young woman was turned white as a sheet during a Nazi experiment gone wrong. Not long after, she's thrown seventy years into the future. Only one person could possibly relate to her, but he doesn't seem to be warming up to her any time soon. (OC centric, not romance centric but eventual Bruce/OC. And Steve is a bit of a dick.)
1. Prologue

Nick Fury sat in his office in the renovated SHIELD headquarters, slaving over towers of paperwork. The Avengers (minus Thor) were all currently living in the Stark Tower together and the only two active members were Clint and Natasha. While they were away the rest of the team really just lounged about. Steve kept himself occupied by pounding his way through several punching bags per day in the gym, Bruce stayed in one of Tony's many labs and kept himself distracted with science-y things and Tony continued with his extravagant life under the watchful eye of Virginia Pepper Potts, joining Bruce every other night to make mischief and mess around.

So far, they'd all managed to keep themselves out of trouble meaning Sargent Nick Fury was a very happy man. Of course, he was slightly annoyed by the seemingly endless amount of paperwork that needed to be done, but it was much better than chasing after highly dangerous, grown men who had the mental capacity of three year olds.

Now, of course, all good things come to an end and this was strongly reinforced to the director as his phone rang.  
"Fury." He picked up dully.  
"Director, Subject Albino is waking up." Was the panicked reply.  
That was all he needed to hear before rushing down to the bottom floor of the facility. The scene he was met with was, for a lack of better words, complete and utter, panic-ridden chaos. Alarms were going off, white coats were running left and right, trying to keep the subject in an unconscious state and everyone was, for a lack of better words, scared shitless. Nick couldn't blame them, this was Albino they were dealing with after all.

Albino was the name given to the girl Dr. Erskine brought with him when he defected seventy years ago. She had to be smuggled out of Nazi territory in a time lock chamber. It was a clever design. Two tanks of gas were attached to the chamber with a timer that controlled how long it would freeze the person inside for. Unfortunately, there had been a complication and the timer had been damaged during an interception by Nazi powers. It was ruined to a point where it could not be opened anymore, and the only way they could retrieve the girl was if they waited for the first tank to run out of gas. Simply cracking it open was not an option as the girl would freeze to death as she 'defrosted', so the only method was to wait for the chamber to run out of gas. That would trigger the secondary tank to release a chemical that would keep the girl alive as she 'defrosted'.

The doctor would always speak of her fondly. They were good friends, he explained. He spoke proudly of her strength but also of her heart. "She had the power to bring down a small army with her own hands, but never the heart to do so." He once said. Obviously, such strength was a call for concern when it came to SHIELD. Nick was busying himself, stationing people here and there, giving them orders to have weapons at the ready, but to not come off as on the offensive when she came out.

Not long after, a small cough was heard and deep breathing could be heard from the other side of the sealed metal container. An antagonizing silence settled over the room as scientists hushed down from their previous frantic running around and agents readied their weapons as the chamber began to hiss, transparent fumes escaping from the lower corners of the capsule where it had been damaged the most.

"Uh… hello?" an British accented voice called out. "Dr. Erskine, are you there?"

Nick silently signaled for one of the men to remove the lid. There was some banging and scraping as the battered door was taken off its hinges and the girl inside was finally revealed.

Inside stood a young woman, looking no older than twenty. She was white as a sheet all over and her eyes were a shockingly bright red. The doctor had never explained to anyone why he had named her Albino, and the fact that the case had no clear surfaces didn't let other people see her, but now it all made sense.

She squinted as the bright lights hit her eyes and raised an arm to shield her eyes from the brightness, everyone else taking a step back in caution at the sudden movement. She blinked, finally noticing the room full of people. She looked around and took the two wary steps required to stand outside the container.

"Where is Dr. Erskine?" she asked, her voice was lowered and sounded extremely suspicious, borderline angry.  
"Miss, I'm Sargent Nick Fury of the United States of America." Nick spoke up. "You're at-"  
"Where is Dr. Erskine." She cut him off and repeated herself, an animalistic growl growing in the back of her throat.  
"There was a malfunction with your time lock chamber and you were asleep for longer than it had been planned." He replied, not really answering the question.  
The girl eyed him suspiciously. "How long?" she asked.  
"It's the year 2012." He replied. "You've been asleep for seventy years."

There was a blank look on the girl's face as she processed the information.  
"Seventy… Seventy years…" she repeated, as if the words were foreign to her. "You're lying." She replied, moving for the door. The agents moved to stop her from getting away, but she simply shoved them out of the way.

After hearing Nick order the men to restrain her, she was off like a mad cheetah. She knocked over every man who stood between her and the door and before long, she was sprinting down the hallways dodging people, trolleys and pot plants with the agility of a monkey. All in all, she was like a wild animal. Her heart pounded in her chest and her body, that had been immobile for far too long, begged her to slow down. She would have none of that. She needed to get out and away from these people. Who were they anyway? They said that they were Americans, but how could she be sure? There was no one here that she would trust other than Dr. Erskine, and they refused to let her see him. Maybe they were Germans and they had taken her back? No, she didn't want to go down there; the memories were far too disturbing.

And how did they expect her to believe that she'd been asleep for seventy years? If she'd been asleep that long, that would mean she would be... She did a quick calculation in her head; ninety two years old! There was no way she could be that old without being all wrinkly all over, and she would never be able to possess the energy to run as fast as she was going. Right, running. She redirected her train of thought and picked up the pace.

It took her less than three minutes to find her way outside where she was met with simply miles and miles of open desert. With no where to run, she hesitantly turned around to find the director and his men. She looked to him with a million questions running through her mind, but only none seemed to be able to make its way to her mouth.

About fifteen minutes later, after they had managed to calm her down enough, she was sitting in one of the more secluded and older kitchens of the facility, accompanied by a woman called Maria Hill. She was nice, Miss Hill, the girl thought. She tried to help her adjust a bit, even though the shocking amount of digital and holographic appliances were proving to be a formidable distraction. To draw her attention away from them, the agent asked her about herself; who she was, where she was from, what she used to do for a living.

Her name was Jenwei Huang, born in 1918 in Yumen, China.


	2. One

Jenwei's father was a silk merchant who worked in a section of the Silk Road between China and Arabia and her mother was a teacher at a local school. She and her family moved to England a few years after the Great War (which she quickly learned was now referred to as the First World War) where she received her high school and college education.  
Despite having a late start to the English language, she managed to secure a job as a journalist, working that job as well as helping her mother manage the family antique shop while her father was busy doing whatever it was that tradesmen did.

She told the agent of her work as a travel journalist, touring various countries and their main cities before staying at a friend's place with his family in the Polish countryside. She spoke of him fondly, as if she'd been with him only moments ago. Filip was his name, and he was her best friend; a true friend who stayed by her side through think and thin. She briefly touched on how she and Filip's family had been tricked by Nazi officials into voluntarily going to the Auschwitz concentration camps, thinking that they were refugee camps for a coming war.  
That was as much as she would speak of. Evidently the part where she gained her super human abilities was too painful to think about. Luckily for the agent, she already had that information from Dr. Erskine which was documented many years ago.

Maria didn't say a word as the girl explained her past. She remembered how torn up Steve had been after finding out that he'd woken up after being frozen for almost the same amount of time, and he was already somewhat accustomed to being alone. He'd lost his best friend prior to being frozen and his family at a young age. Sure, he still had many friends, as well as Peggy who he lost while he was frozen, but the only adjustment he really needed to make was the one from one time period to the next. The shock of the time jump was partially numbed by his already grieving state as well as his strict, soldier mindset.  
On the other hand, Jenwei, or Jen as she had offered to be called, lost everything in the blink of an eye; literally. To her, she must have closed her eyes for only seconds or minutes at the very most, and in that time, every family member, every friend; her whole life had been sealed into what she could only refer to as a memory. Those who were dearest to her, even those who weren't so dear; gone in the blink of an eye.

There were a few days of monitoring the girl as she lived in the facility among the agents. She barely talked, didn't eat much and spent almost all her time in the gym. The similarities between her and Steve were uncanny.  
Her suitcase that had been brought with her were returned, including her travel folder that held all her writing, photos and any other things she wanted to remember. Basically, they handed back a memory trigger-bomb. She would read over the messy file every night, rearranging and organizing things and reminiscing the life that she had lost in mere seconds.

Maria, who was given the task of watching over her, was becoming increasingly concerned. Jenwei's depression got to a point where wouldn't speak to anyone anymore. She would spend the whole day in the gym, destroying whatever she was allowed to, and half of what she wasn't allowed to. No electronic gadgets were spared, no matter how much they scared or confused her. Despair, she learnt, was a strong emotion. One that could pull, push and twist you into thinking or doing things, even if you vowed against them.

"Director Fury, you aren't even listening to me. The damage she is doing isn't just a bump in out budget, it's going to ruin her!" Maria tried to reason with her superior. "She's going to fall further into depression and it's going to make her angry enough to just destroy everything. She's already ridiculously confused and doesn't understand how our world works at all, so anything she does is simply out of frustration. Now unless you want another super-villain on your hands, you need to get her out of our facility!"  
"Then where do you suggest we take her?" Nick asked. "Just dump her in the middle of New York City? She isn't going to have a clue what to do or where to go. On top of that she's an important piece of evidence if we ever need to deal with HYDRA again and you _know_ that they're still out there." He shot back.  
"HYDRA might not be out our biggest concern if she goes insane." Maria growled. The director was irritatingly stubborn sometimes. Most times, it was a good thing, especially when it came to dealing with idiot politicians but this time it was simply infuriating.  
"Then where do we put her?" he asked again.  
Maria smiled back, she knew exactly where Jenwei could go.

The impossibly tall, glass building confounded Jenwei as she stood outside, looking up its length to read five, giant, florescent letters that seemed to be floating off the side: STARK. The name was familiar to her. The night before they were due to defect, Dr. Erskine mentioned that he would be working with an American scientist, genius of some sort by the same name. She had no idea whether or not the Stark Tower owner and the Stark from 1940 were related at all, but it was irrelevant to her at the time since she was so busy gaping at all the other gigantic buildings surrounding her. Compared to the double storey terraces that she was used to back in England, well, England in 1940, their sizes were mind-numbing.  
With Maria next to her, she warily stepped into the building. She'd gotten used to doors that automatically slid open when you stood in close range of them, and the fact that women who wore skirts and dresses that went halfway up their thighs weren't actually walking around in their underwear. However, one thing she was thankful for was the fact that it was okay for women to wear trousers now.  
"Ah, Miss Hill!" A blonde head of hair popped up from the other side of the receptionist table. She quickly click-clacked her way over to the two in a pair of those ridiculously tall high heels that all women seemed to wear these days.

"Miss Potts, it's nice to see you again." The agent replied, giving a brief smile.  
The blonde returned the gesture before turning to the paper-white girl, offering a hand to shake. "You must be Jenwei."  
The girl shook her hand with a thin smile. "Just Jen will be fine." She replied quietly.

She would be living in one of the top levels of the building. She had her own room, but would be living with several other people, she was told. Two were away in a different country on business at the moment, one was out for the day and the other two were hanging out in one of the labs in the basement of the building.  
Miss Potts, waited for her to unpack and familiarize herself with the room, which didn't take awfully long seeing as she had brought so little with her. The blonde woman showed her around the level that she would be living on before taking her down to the labs to meet the two residents who were currently 'home'.

"Tony, you remember me talking to you about Jenwei?" Miss Potts called out, stepping into a seemingly empty lab.  
"Um… no. Who is he? She? I was never good at Asian names." He replied from wherever he was, muttering the last part to himself.  
She rolled her eyes. "_She_ is the girl who's going to be staying with you in the Stark Tower."  
A head of dark brown hair popped up from one of the benches. "Staying with us?" he repeated, a second head of greyer hair slowly rising up to have a look at what all the fuss was about. "Since when?"  
"Since this morning." She huffed irritably. "I specifically told you that it was very important that you remembered that you were going to have a guest. I can't do everything for you especially since I have to go to a meeting now, so I trust that you'll look after her."  
In one breath, the blonde woman had covered three issues and Jenwei was left looking stunned at the speed that the other woman spoke at.  
"I'm sorry to leave you here with him." Miss Potts said, turning to face her. "Tony can be really annoying and horrible, so if he ever does anything just ignore him and talk to Bruce instead okay?" she said quickly, patting the girl's shoulder comfortingly before hurrying off, the sound of her clicky-clacky high heels trailing after her.

Tony and the other man, who she assumed to be 'Bruce', walked up to the dazed girl slowly.  
"Oh, I know about you." Tony said, more to himself than anyone else. "You've been asleep for a while haven't you?"  
"Um, I guess you could say that." She replied quietly.  
"Wait, asleep? As in asleep-asleep and not sleeping-asleep?" Bruce asked. "For how long?"  
"Seventy years." Tony informed him quickly, before turning his attention back to the girl. "I heard you've got some crazy strength too. Looks like we have another Captain America on our hands."  
Jenwei was stunned fro a moment. "Captain America?" She repeated. "I'm sorry, if that a term for something or an actual person?" she asked.  
The two men stared at her as if she was crazy before a realisation came to Tony. "Oh, of course! You were asleep when he was around."  
Jenwei was still confused. "I'm afraid you lost me around three sentences ago. Is this 'Captain America' someone I should know?" she asked.  
Tony just shook his head and told her not to worry about it before wrapping an arm around her shoulder and leading her back to the bench where he and Bruce had previously been working at.

Tony wasn't as bad as Pepper made him out to be, Jenwei decided. He was annoying and extremely cocky at times (and boy, did he have fun scaring her when he introduced her to Jarvis), but he was still a nice guy at heart. She got along with him and enjoyed being around his happy personality. Dr. Bruce Banner, however, was quiet as a mouse, rarely adding to their conversation, or more accurately, Tony's ramblings at her. Whenever they made eye contact, they could only awkwardly smile before looking away. Not that he was an unlikeable person, just that the doctor and she were very similar in the way that they were extremely awkward around people they didn't know well.

Before she'd even realized it, the day had passed and it was nearing midnight. Jarvis had informed them that someone by the name of 'Mr. Rogers' had returned, and that made Tony all kinds of excited. He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into the elevator with him, Bruce following the two closely. She and 'Mr. Rogers' would get on perfectly, Tony explained before going on about how he was practically going to 'hook them up' or something.

"Steve!" The self-proclaimed billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist yelled as soon as he caught sight of a familiar head of blonde hair.  
He turned around to face the grinning brunette. "Who's she?" The tall man's smiling expression changed as soon as he saw the paper-white, red-eyed girl.  
"New edition to the family." Tony replied, his smile never faltering. "She's actually just like you." He added.  
Steve eyed him warily. "What do you mean she's 'just like me'?"  
"Well, she's been frozen for, what was it?" he asked, turning to the girl briefly before remembering, snapping his attention back to the man in front of them. "Seventy years. On top of that she was also a test subject for the Super Soldier Serum."  
Steve looked the girl up and down a couple times before speaking again. "She's not like me." With another cold look, he turned and walked off.

Tony and Bruce stood where they were, stunned.  
"He's not usually like that." Tony mentioned to the woman.  
She just shook her head. "It's understandable. I look pretty… horrific anyway." Her voice was quiet and laced with sadness.  
Her comment made Tony spin on his heel to face her. "You do _not_ look horrific!" he shot back. "So what if you're eyes are red? People these days have purple hair and no one seems to care."  
The girl blinked. Purple hair? That wasn't possible was it?  
Tony sighed. "Come with me. I'm going to take you shopping!" he smiled, dragging the girl off.  
"Um… Tony." Bruce spoke up meekly. He always spoke in a low tone and came off as awkward and almost shy. It was a nice contrast to Tony's loud and outgoing ways, Jenwei thought. "You realize that it's half past one."  
Tony groaned at Bruce's comment. "Fine, but we're _both_ taking her shopping tomorrow."  
"What?" Bruce asked, feigning irritation. "Why do I have to go?"  
"Because you haven't been outside for weeks." Tony replied curtly. "Now, Jen, if you want to stay up with us, you're more than welcome to do so. Bruce will take you back to the lab because I want to have a chat with the old man."  
Jenwei blinked again. Old man? She didn't remember seeing any old people.  
Tony picked up on her confusion and chuckled. "Don't worry, it's just a nickname for Steve. Why don't you go back down with Bruce?" he told her, before leaving in the same direction that Steve had not long ago.  
Still looking despondent and somewhat dazed, Jenwei allowed Bruce to lead her away. Deciding that a nice cup of tea would probably be more comforting than watching him fiddle with complicated machinery or random chemicals, Bruce changed their course to one of the kitchens.

Meanwhile, Tony had finally caught up with the (technically) ninety-two year old American legend who was in the middle of changing his clothes.  
"Hey, what was that out there?" Tony demanded, bursting into the room with absolutely no regard for privacy.  
The war veteran jumped at the sudden intrusion. "Sheesh! Don't need to scare me." He grumbled angrily, pulling a clean shirt over his head.  
"You still haven't answered my question." Tony said. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this time last year, you were in the same position as her and I clearly remember you mentioning that if someone where to be in your position you would want to help them, so what was all that about?" he demanded.  
Steve heaved a sigh and turned to look the other man in the eyes. "Well, have you _seen_ her?" he asked.  
"Uh, yeah. She was standing right in front of us and prior to that I practically spent the whole day with her and Bruce in the labs. I'm pretty sure I saw her."  
Steve rolled his eyes. "I meant her appearance."  
Tony's head snapped backwards a little in shock. "Now that's just harsh. She does look a little different, and I'll admit, her eyes would scare the life out of me if I met her in a dark alley, but come on. You work with the _Hulk_. If anything she looks significantly more normal than when Bruce Hulks out."  
Steve groaned. "It's not even that. I mean, she's _Asian_." He sputtered as if it was the one thing that Tony should have thought of.  
The said man raised an eyebrow. "Did I just hear you right?" he asked, sounding borderline angry. "Did you just say you don't like her based on the fact that she's _Asian_? I'm sorry Steve, but you're in 2012 now, whether you like it or not. You're in a century where we are moving past idiotic, racist stereotyping and being an American icon that represents freedom for our _whole_ country, you shouldn't be acting like an uneducated asshole from the Middle Ages." Tony huffed.  
Steve was taken aback by the comment and immediately went on the offensive. "Have you heard of the damage that they do? Their gangs are known to be ruthless and that 'all brain, no heart' mindset of theirs-"  
"Whoa, hold on a second." Tony cut him off. "Did you just quote 'Fu Manchu'?"  
"Yeah, what about it?" he asked.  
"You know that he's a fictional character don't you? He's based completely on stereotypes and nothing about him is solid factual stuff."  
Steve was at a loss for words. How was he meant to reply to that one anyway?  
"And what about the Japanese guy that on your team back in 1943? Jim Morita was it? You seem to be very fond of that guy. Care to explain?" Tony asked.  
"He was from California and he was fighting on our side." He argued.  
"Jen's English and if memory serves me correctly, they fought alongside us, so what's the issue here?" Tony asked, pushing the captain to give him a legitimate answer.  
"From what I heard, she was born in China so I don't trust her, okay?" Steve shot back angrily. "Get out of my room."  
Tony stood there, staring at him in disbelief before shaking his head. "Well would you look at that? Captain America, the sinophobe." With that comment, he left the room and wandered back down to the labs, stopping by the kitchen to grab some coffee.

Of course, he was pleasantly surprised to find Bruce and Jenwei there chatting quietly over mugs of hot tea and decided to join the party.

* * *

**So I originally said that the chapters would be 5,000 – 10,000 words… well, I lied. Each chapter will be 3000 words+ or thereabouts. Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the story so far.**

**Thanks to the two lovely guests and EvilPurpleCookiePenkyMonguin who left reviews for me, as well as the handful of people who subscribed and favourited. Until next time,**

**xTom**


	3. Two

**Author's Note:** The text in italics at the bottom of this chapter is in Jenwei's point of view. A few of the following chapters will also be like this.

* * *

Jenwei somehow manages to convince Tony out of taking her shopping the next day. Having cleared his schedule and with nothing else to do, Tony goes over her profile and digs around the details of the version of the serum that she had been injected with. It turns out that the version she had only improved her strength and speed. Her internal organs, although stronger than an average person's, was still vulnerable and she was just as susceptible to diseases and viruses.

Eventually, Tony gives up on trying to rekindle his inventing muse and submerges himself in the girl's file. Unfortunately, this leaves Bruce with nothing to do, so he ends up wandering around the tower and somehow stumbles upon Jenwei's room. He nervously knocks on the door and opens it when she invites him in.

"Dr. Banner." She smiles, looking up from her desk.

"Hey, Jenny. Um, how are you?" he asks, somewhat nervously.

"I'm doing quite well, thank you." She replies with a small smile. "Perhaps a little under the weather, but it's probably just a cold."

"Oh, right. Um, okay then." At this point, the doctor is slapping himself for even thinking of knocking on her door. He does a funny little shuffle on the spot and scratches his neck sheepishly.

Jenwei looks up at him and frowns in a somewhat amused way. "Dr. Banner? Was there something you wanted here?" She asks.

"Oh, um. Not really." He makes out flustered. "I just wanted to see if you were settling in alright.

A grin lights up Jenwei's face. "That's very kind of you, doctor."

"Bruce." The man quickly corrects her.

A look of confusion crosses her face again.

"Um, j-just call me Bruce."

The smile returns to Jenwei's face as she nods. "Alright then. Thank you for your concern, Bruce. How about tea, then? Or are you more of a coffee person?" she asks.

"Sorry?"

"Tea or coffee? I'm asking which you prefer." She repeated herself, closing her book and standing up.

Still confused and growing more flustered by the second, he unconsciously took a step back. "U-uh, I'm more of a coffee person."

Jenwei made a motion for him to leave the room.

Two minutes later, the man was sitting at the table in the kitchen, watching Jenwei as she prepared the tea and coffee. It wasn't till the woman placed the mug in front of the man that he noticed her oddly shaped nails. In all honesty, they looked more like claws than nails to him.

Jenwei, being ever observant noticed and quickly hid them in her fists.  
"They, um, came with the serum I took." She explained meekly.

"Really? Was it part of the serum or was it a defect?" he asked, putting his glasses on and motioning in a way to ask if he could see.

Jenwei reluctantly uncurled one of her hands and placed it in Bruce's. "I'm not too sure. I wasn't told any of the specific details back in Germany and everything here's being kept hush-hush."

"Well, why don't we go down to the lab and Tony and I will run a couple tests for you. And he can probably hack your files while we're at it."

"Hack?" The girl repeated. "Why would you want to destroy them?"

A moment of silence passed between the two before the doctor realized what the confusion was.

"Oh, since we have a lot of stuff on computers how, hacking is a term used for breaking into things on them. So if we're hacking your file, it means we're getting past all the security on it." He explained.

Jenwei, just sat there with a blank look. "I'm going to pretend to know what you're saying and just go with it." She decided aloud.

The doctor just shook his head and laughed.

Some twenty minutes later, the two, now joined by Tony, were sitting at a cleaned lab table with syringes, test tubes and microscopes all laid out and ready for use. Another ten minutes on, and all the necessary samples had been taken. Tony had a couple set for JARVIS to examine, while he and Bruce did some themselves. Jenwei, however, was lying down with a nosebleed. It was normal, she explained, and that it would go away after a while. Although, recently, they'd been getting worse.

An hour passes and no one, not even JARVIS, could make sense of her condition. The actual cells themselves had been far too mutilated by the serum to be diagnoable. So, instead, they turned to JARVIS to hack into her files. He had predicted that the hacking could take up to an hour as hers, for whatever reason, had been kept extremely confidential. So, to pass the time, Tony asked her about her past. They had the time, so she was told not to spare any details.

"Where should I start?" The girl asked.  
"Why not start from the very beginning? Like, I was born on etcetera, etcetera." He suggested before turning to Bruce, who was still at the microscope. "You going to join us big guy?" he asked.

"I'm listening, don't worry." Was the mumbled reply.

"Someone isn't a fan of story time." Tony muttered, causing Jenwei to laugh.

_I was born on the fourth of September 1918 in Yumen of China. My father was a rich silk merchant, who worked in a section of the Silk Road between China and Arabia (and was often away for many months to a year at a time) and my mother was a teacher at the local school. My parents moved to England a few years after the Great War ended, thinking it would be a better place to live with more opportunities. It was a lot better than the small house that I lived in for the first six to seven years of my life. Although my family was considered to be very wealthy in our province, we lived in an oasis town in the desert regions of China so that my father would be able to stop at to stay with us for a short period of time as he travelled between the eastern provinces of China to the northwestern countries of Arabia._

_England was very different to Yumen, so it took quite some time for me to adjust. The first thing I had to change was my choice in clothing. I couldn't wear trousers anymore because it was strongly against English culture to do so, so I folded all my pants into a box and stacked that on top of my mother's box of trousers and turned that (and an old wooden table top) into our dinner table. The only other clothing we had were our traditional silk dresses. They were made from silk and dyed bright blues, reds and golds with intricate vines, birds and flowery patterns hand-stitched over them. I felt incredibly out of place as I walked around the markets and stores with my mother in our brightly coloured clothes when all the other women and their children wore light pastel coloured clothes. The looks we got as we passed the Englishmen in the streets were absolutely unbearable. They scrutinized and watched us as we went about our regular activities as if we were circus freaks. _

_Luckily, I didn't go to school like most kids. My family was too poor after the move to give me a formal education so my parents homeschooled me until I was around thirteen. My mother, who was a teacher, taught me Chinese, mathematics and a little bit about the three main sciences while my father taught me the Arabic that he learnt as he worked as a tradesman as well as a bit of English that he learnt while he worked in a factory. My father was one of those overprotective ones, so he also taught me a lot of the kung fu that his father passed on to him. I wasn't a master at it, but I knew enough to put up a fight if I needed to._

_My dad eventually ended up abandoning that job because he missed his travelling and trade. By chance, he ran into a few of his friends while they were working in an open market on the way to his work and they convinced him into having a few drinks with them. My father was well known amongst his fellow tradesmen as the best silk dealer and they were all eager to get their hands back on some high quality fabrics so they offered to help him back into the business. Luckily for them, my father jumped at the opportunity. He took up his previous job in his traditional section of the Silk Route and began to work back his fortune. His friends who regularly stopped in England often came to visit my mother and I in the place of my father. They would give us money that my father asked them to pass onto us every time they visited and often asked if we needed anything extra. I was glad to have them drop in and check up on us and they usually stayed for the day, chatting, eating and drinking tea with us._

_My father worked tirelessly in the trade for two years before coming back to us and when he did, he had saved enough to buy a small shop of his own. He sold his excess silk rolls and clothes and well as antiques, porcelain pottery and art from East Asia. We didn't expect the business that we received, but it turns out that the English are quite interested in Asian culture. By the time I was twelve, we made enough money to pay back his friends before buying the living area above his shop and moving in there, selling our crammed terrace floor. _

_I didn't go to school so, obviously, I had a lot of spare time. I usually stayed in our shop, helping clean and dust, keeping everything in top condition. There was an old piano that was left in the shop and my mother taught me to play a couple tunes. I also taught myself as much English as I could by reading the newspaper everyday while watching over the shop from the counter, referring to the small second-hand Chinese-English dictionary that my father bought for the family while my mother helped out with the customers. Although her English wasn't perfect, she had a certain knack for picking up languages so she managed to learn enough to run the business by the time it opened. _

_Seven years after moving to England, our hard work paid off and we finally had enough money to send me to high school. It wasn't top end, but it was a good high school with well-rounded students graduating every year. High school was a slow and painful process for me. My English was awkward and cracked and my accent was embarrassingly heavy. I was avoided like the plague because of my background and being the only foreigner in the whole school, I had no one to turn to. Instead, I immersed myself in studies and became the ace student in mathematics and biology, graduating a year early which earned me a scholarship at good university. In my spare time, I usually holed myself up in my room or in the shop, listening to jazz music on the two vinyl disks that my father had given to me for my eighteenth birthday and finishing whatever assignment I had at the time. I married myself to being socially awkward, remaining that way through to university. _

_That was, until I met another foreign student, Filip Miezsko. He was a transfer student from Poland who earned a scholarship after completing a university entrance exam in his home country. Standing at a nice 185cm with light brunette hair and bright blue eyes, he was an instant girl magnet. His English was much more impressive than mine, and he got along with the other students better than I did. I remember feeling a bit jealous of his (almost) instant popularity. Within the first few weeks of his arrival, a few (brave) girls had already confessed to him, hoping to take a big, strong and smart boy home to their parents. The popular kids were all over him and every time I saw him, there was at least one of them hanging off his arm. I thought he was just like them, loud, obnoxious and rude. However, unbeknownst to me, Filip had a heart the size of the ocean but, at the same time, he was an incredibly shy guy, making him quite an awkward person, a bit like me. Also unknown to me, he sat in many of the same lectures, had many of the same classes and interests as me. He obviously noticed before I did and approached me one day while I was studying in the library._

"_Hello, Jenwei I believe it is?" he asked me in a thick accent that reminded me of the further west countries of Europe._

"_Yes." I replied slowly. My accent may have been heavy, but I had no problem understanding English, both written and spoken. "Can I help you with anything?"_

"_Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch with me tomorrow." He asked._

_I remember being stunned beyond belief. "What?" I asked, a bit too loudly. I immediately turned into a tomato as I spurted apologies. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm not declining your offer. I'm just a bit surprised I guess." I sputtered back, tripping over my own tongue._

_The boy chuckled at me. "That's ok. So is that a yes to lunch?" he asked._

"_Um… yeah. Sure, I guess." I replied._

"_Great. I'll see you after our lecture tomorrow then." He smiled._

_I awkwardly smiled back and nodded. Satisfied with my reply, he left with a short goodbye and disappeared behind a bookshelf. I remember wondering if he had been put up to it for a bet or something. I would later realize that it was the single most idiotic thought to ever pass through my head._

_The next day, as promised, Filip was waiting for me outside the lecture room. I remember feeling more uncomfortable than I'd even been in my life as we walked to the café that was conveniently located a good five minutes walk away from the campus. I started having a panic attack inside. I had no idea how to act around people. Although I did interact with the customers when they came to our shop, it way never much more than 'hello's, 'thank you's, prices and general product information. It wasn't much to start a conversation on. Thankfully, he broke the ice by asking to see my notes. I told him that they were in Chinese and that seemed to make him more excited to see them than he was before. He told me that he 'absolutely loved' looking East Asian scripts because they looked more 'delicate' than European languages. After some whining, he somehow got me to teach him a little basic Chinese in exchange for some basic lessons on Polish. We talked for what seemed to be hours on the single topic of languages._

"_So, exactly why did you want to have lunch with me?" I asked him, finally dropping the million-dollar question._

_He smiled at me, not really having a reply for a while. "I like quieter people." He finally told me._

_I raised an eyebrow. "You don't like being around those popular kids?" I asked._

"_No, not particularly. They make too much noise and they can never be calm for long enough." He chuckled to himself._

_I was stunned. He didn't come across to me as the kind of guy who liked quite afternoons in tiny corner cafes, sipping on coffees and discussing notes. I'd always thought that he liked to go to those clubs and bars and drink until the early hours of the morning. I would have never guessed him to be the bookworm sort of guy._

_Our one-time lunch quickly turned into a weekly routine and before I knew it, we were the best of friends. He had affectionately renamed me 'Jen' or 'Jenny' since he had a hard time pronouncing the last half of my name. Filip and I had grown so close that it we had become virtually inseparable, even for group tasks where we were assigned other partners. We would meet up and help each other with the tasks, spending more time with each other than our assigned partners. Eventually our teachers gave up trying to separate us and stuck us together all the time. Over the three years that we spent together in university, the weekly visits to the local café turned into a daily outing where we compared notes, lectures and statistics over coffee and cake, gossiping about our day's events. I'd also managed to force some extra Polish lessons out of him and picked up enough to be conversational. It was just our luck that we only lived a short walk away from each other, with only about ten blocks between us. We graduated together and fortunately, stayed in contact, constantly calling each other, meeting up every other day and occasionally dropping in without notice. _

_I was eternally grateful to Filip for choosing to be my friend because without him I would have still been an antisocial hermit, holing herself up in her room doing nothing but listening to the only two jazz vinyl records that were continuously playing and irritating the customers, if Filip hadn't demanded I go along with him to the local swing club for his birthday. At first, I was hesitant to go, even though I was quite fond of swing. (I was quite a fan of Fred Astaire's movies, especially __Swing Time__ and I was looking forward to seeing __Second Chorus__.) Firstly, I didn't have the social skills to interact with a large group of people and secondly, I didn't have many dresses appropriate for the occasion. I still mainly stuck to Chinese based clothing and the only western dresses I had were a bit too small for me. I turned to my mother for advice and she told me that she had a dress she could lend to me. She darted upstairs, shortly returning to the shop with a red, white polka dotted halter-neck dress in her hands._

"_That will look great on you tonight." She smiled at me warmly before attending to the last customers of the day._

_I smiled back before running upstairs to change. Filip was due to pick me up in an hour and I was still in my traditional Chinese dress. I took a quick shower and cleaned up my face while I was at it so that I could put some light makeup on later. I stood in front of the small body-length mirror in my room as I put on the white dress, letting my eyes adjust to the foreign clothing on my body. It hung loosely around my hips, and draped down to just above my knees, unlike my typical dresses that reached down past my knees at least. Noticing the time, I quickly put on a little make up before making my way to the shop._

_As promised, Filip was already waiting there when I came downstairs. It was a bit embarrassing to see him staring at me and I'm sure I was as red as the polka dots on my dress._

"_This is a nice change." He complimented me; walking up to the bottom of the stairs and getting a good look at the white and red fabric._

"_Are you saying I didn't look any good before?" I asked, jokingly hitting his shoulder._

"_No, not at all." He laughed back, taking my hand and leading me out._

"_So what do you think?" I asked. "About the dress that is."_

"_It looks cute on you." He looks at me, stretching our arms out a little so he can look me head to toe again. "Very attractive." He smiled at me. I saw something in his eyes as he did. Warmth? Affection? I couldn't tell. Not letting the confusion get to me, I brushed the feeling aside and continued with our small talk as we walked to the club, all the while taking note of what he was wearing. He had black trousers and a matching blazer with a white dress shirt and the red silk tie I'd given him for his last birthday. I smiled to myself, feeling proud in a funny way._

_By the time we reached our destination, the sun was ready to set and spilling red and orange all over the previously blue sky. We took up a small booth in the corner of the club and sat there for a while, continuing our chat. We had already been there for a good fifteen minutes and no one else had turned up to join us. I thought it was odd, so I asked him about it._

"_It's just us tonight." He replied._

_I was surprised. "You didn't invite anyone else?" I asked._

"_Nope. I hope that doesn't bug you if you were expecting a party." He smiled his signature cheeky smile._

_I chuckled back. "It's fine. I was actually worrying about having to deal with more than one person at a time." I confessed, laughing._

_He laughed along. "I know. Just think of it as a date."_

_I stopped laughing (but not smiling) and sent him a skeptical look. I hoped I looked composed and oblivious on the outside, but my heart skipped a beat and I felt my stomach twist in a knot. "A date?" I asked._

"_Yeah, I'll be your first fake boyfriend." He joked. The knot tightened. _

_I paused for a moment in 'thought'. "Hmm, ok then. What are we going to do tonight?" I asked. "We're not going to sit in this little booth all night are we, darling?" I joked._

"_No, we shan't!" he said in a gallant voice, standing up as if he was a king making a speech in front of his army. I snickered at his crazy behavior. "Tonight, we shall dance!"_

_That was the one thing I had been dreading to hear all night, but I went along with it anyway. Filip stepped outside the booth and offered a hand for me to take. I placed my smaller hand in his and he led me down to the main floor, both of us laughing and giggling all the way. _

_When we reached the smooth black and white tiles of the dance floor, he spun me around so that I was facing him. He took my other hand and placed it on his upper arm. We started small, just stepping from side to side to the beat of the music as the more experienced dancers twirled, twisted, spun and kicked around us. After a few minutes of persuasion, Filip convinced me to let him teach me some basic moves. It took a while and a few slips and trips to get a hang of it, but by the end of the night, I was swinging and twirling away with everyone else. Maybe I didn't look nearly half as good as them, but, if anything, I was having just as much fun. Filip managed to persuade the band to play __Sing, Sing, Sing__, my favourite song by Benny Goodman. By the time we left, I regretted ever feeling nervous about that night. Without realizing it, in one night Filip had doubled my confidence, which is how I found the courage to ask for a job at the local newspaper as a reporter/journalist the next week. With my not-so-perfect English and a lot of persuasion from Filip, I managed to talk my way into one of the major papers in the area through a shaky interview. I started off with a small strip on daily going-ons, but managed to work my way up to reporting in the Asian section of the weekly foreign relations insert. Filip had also pursued journalism and ended up working as headline reporter for a separate newspaper. We continued our weekly café meet ups and discussed headline news as well as side panel articles, happily sharing information and tips on where and what to report._

_Two years into my job, my boss finalized a decision to include a travel insert in the paper. Needing a new team of writers, he called up some of his employees and interviewed each of them separately, including me. He called back a few of us the next day, and I had somehow managed to score the managing position of the team. I was to leave the city in a week's time and travel around Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Denmark before returning to England. The trip would take more than a year and I was to send a detailed report as soon as I finished touring each country. _

_When I excitedly informed Filip of the details of my promotion, and he demanded I take him along and stuck with me for the entirety of my trip. We travelled to every corner of each country, writing down notes and chattering away happily all the while._


	4. Three

_When we arrived in Poland, his family, who had offered to house us, was incredibly kind to me. They treated me like their own, regardless of the difference in race and the major slight language barrier issue. Of course, Filip ended up having to stay with me almost every minute of the day, translating everything for me. Filip and I spent countless hours everyday out and about with him showing me all the sights around his country. We visited as many landmarks as we could, from the crowded streets of Warsaw to the smaller inns in the countryside, all the while with me scribbling down notes of names, places, things to see and do to turn into a full fledged travel article later on._

_All of his three sisters (Sara, Lidia and Teresa), four brothers (Luke, Stefan, Rafael and Paul), their spouses and their children, aunts, uncles and grandparents also lived with him and his parents together in a large country-side mansion. Although it was a little crowded, the family was the most warm and loving group of people I had ever encountered. I remembered all the children and their names as well. From youngest to oldest, it was Zofia, Lukasz, Halina, Felicia, Josef, Xavier, Aleksander, Rajmund, Roza and Franciszek. I loved all of them as if they were my own family, but I had to admit to a favourite. One of the middle kids, Josef, was the stand out in my eyes. The little boy, only just over seven years old was so bright that as soon as I saw him I was sure he would become some kind of a miracle maker, inventing a world class invention or finding a cure for a terrible disease. On the days when the weather was bad, he and I would sit in front of the fireplace and play chess. I was a seasoned player in board games from the number of board games that I played with my father, but the boy wasn't easy to beat and I lost to him more times than I'd like to admit. _

_Being the youngest in the family, Filip was the only one of his siblings who was unmarried. His oldest sibling, Sara, already had three children and was one or two months into her fourth pregnancy, and most of his other siblings had children as well. I remember asking Filip when he was planning to settle down to which he replied to with a vague "Soon."_

_I raised an eyebrow, picking up that if it was to be 'soon', then he probably had someone in mind. You know what they say about how curiosity killed the cat, so I asked him whom he had in mind._

_Being infuriatingly vague again, he replied with, "You'll find out soon enough."_

_I sent him a frustrated glare and he chuckled back at me. _

"_Think of it as a surprise." He told me._

"_You know I hate surprises." I muttered and he rolled his eyes at me. I hated it when he treated me like a child who wasn't ready to know about 'grown up' business, but being the brilliant friend that I am, I gave him his space. _

_We were having this conversation on our way home after visiting a lake in a neighboring town when we saw a few Polish army officers standing at the front door, speaking to Filip's mother. As soon as he had parked the car in the driveway, he rushed up to the officer and asked what was going on. I didn't understand much, but the officer said something along the lines of having to be relocated. Filip shot me a worried look and ushered me upstairs to pack my belongings. He told me that a neighboring country had begun to invade and that we needed to evacuate as soon as possible as we were close to the border. He also said that that there was a temporary refugee camp that we would be going to and we would be provided with housing and necessities like food and water and so on while we were there. I was struck by surprise. Was there another war? It wasn't possible, I convinced myself, but as I packed, I couldn't help but feel more and more worried. Regardless of my own suspicions, I packed up without question and within an hour, the whole family was ready to go. I remember seeing the adorable eleven-year-old Franciszek holding six-month-old little Zofia in his arms as we clambered into the bus that would take us to the train station where we would then get into a train that would take us to a place called Auschwitz. I'd never heard of the place before and it definitely wasn't on my list of places to visit. Surprisingly, when I asked Filip, he told me he had never heard of it either. Maybe it was a new city, I thought, or it was just the name of the temporary camp we would be staying in. _

"Wait. Auschwitz? So you were taken by the Nazis?" Tony interrupted.

"Yes, so I was told." Jenwei replied. "I've also been informed that they were working closely with a group called HYDRA. That name is much more familiar to me."

"HYDRA are the ones who forced Erskine to develop the serum." Bruce added, having ditched the microscope for Jenwei's tale some time ago.

_It was all fine until I saw our train arrive. They were telling us to get into the kind of carts that my father told me the Arabic traders carried their cattle in; large, wooden crates on wheels with gaps for ventilation. At that point, I realized that something was very wrong. I was about to protest to it and say that I was going to find my way back to England with the cash I had brought with me, but before I could do anything, the officers and guards started pushing us in. We were crammed into the carriages, hundreds of us in the same cart. There was hardly any room to sit and there was nowhere to go if someone needed to use a toilet. _

_The whole trip took about a day and a half, and when we arrived, we all stunk. We were unlucky enough to catch a hot day in the August summer and by the end of the trip, the cart was putrid and smelt like human waste. I was relieved to get out but as soon as I did, I wanted to go back and hide in the cattle carrier. I knew that there was something horrible about this Auschwitz place. Something in my gut told me it wasn't anything like what the officials told us. The officers ordered all of us to assemble outside our cart as soon as we got out, so we all lined up outside the red carts and a selection process of some sort began. At first, I thought we were just being divided into women, children and elderly, and men. But I was proven wrong when the guard came around to me. He eyed me closely and signaled for me to take a couple steps forward so that he could take a better look at me. I obediently did as I was asked and the man walked a quick circle around me. I ignored his 'inspecting' as much as I could and watched closely as he leaned over to his partner and asked him something in German. He was a short man (for the army at least) with light brunette hair. He had a big forehead and a horrible haircut that only emphasized the side of the space between his hairline and his eyebrows. He stopped in front of me and asked me something in German. To this day, I haven't a clue what he'd asked._

"_Z jakiego kraju?" he asked again, this time in Polish. That I understood a little better. He was asking me where I was from._

"_Chiny." I replied. _China_._

"_Można walczyć?" he continued to question me. _Can you fight?_ I had no idea what relevance that had to anything, but I answered anyway._

"_Jestem wyszkolony." _I am trained_. I hoped I didn't stuff up my pronunciation. Why was he asking me these questions anyway? What was his point in all this?_

_The interrogating officer turned back to his partner and said something else in German, and the other nodded again. He called over another officer to continue the selection process before he turned back to me._

"_Proszę ze mną." _Come with me.

_I shot Filip an anxious look and he sent one back, just as anxious and confused as mine was before I was shoved forward and ordered to follow the man._

_We walked for a while before reaching a car where I was then driven to a different part of the camp. As we entered a building, I still had no idea what was going on or what I would be doing. We passed a couple windows and when I looked out, I saw a group of twenty or so men in striped pajama like uniforms. Were they keeping prisoners on site as well? I didn't have any more time to think about that as we walked into a little conference room where the officer held the door open for me. _

_He had me sit down at the opposite side of the wooden table, before taking out a pen and notepad, sitting down in front of me._

"_To jakie jest twoje imię?" he asked. _What is your name?

"_Jenwei Huang." I replied. "A ty?" _And you?

"_Jestem Rudolf Höss."__ I am Rudolf Höss__. I nodded in reply. "Czy znasz wiele Polskich?" He asked me. _Do you know much Polish?

_I shook my head. "Bardzo mało." _Very little.

"_Niemieckiego?" _German?

"_Brak." _None.

"_Angielski?" _English?

"_Tak." _Yes.

"_Ah, that is good." He replied in a heavy German accent. "I was worried that I would have to find a translator." He makes some kind of a light joke. It didn't work too well though, I could hear the forced tone in his voice. It was the kind of tone that my father had warned me about. 'Never trust anyone who sounds forced.' He always said. 'They only want something from you.'_

_So I kept y mouth shut._

"_So, you are a Chinese soldier?" he muttered to himself. I had no idea what he was going on about, so I just went along with it. "I know you must be wondering why you were brought here" he continued. "Auschwitz is a refugee camp for the civilians of areas that we believe will be affected by the coming war."_

"_War?" I repeated, totally confused. I was considering telling him that I was a citizen of England, but now it seemed like the most moronic thing to do. If I let slip that I was a citizen of their enemy, they would kill me._

"_Ah, yes. This will seem like sudden news to a normal civilian, but it is sudden to the Polish government as well. England has declared war on Poland."_

_I raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you German?" I asked; his obvious German accent was making me suspicious._

"_Ah, yes. But I am sworn to the Poles." He told me. "I migrated long ago with my family after the Great War."_

_I wasn't convinced, but said nothing more._

"_As I was saying, England has declared war on Poland, and Germany, who is allied with the Poles, is aiding in the fight. We wish for as few casualties as possible but we are, unfortunately, short on soldiers." He explained. I was confused, but made sure not to let it show. "So we are trialing a new drug to make our soldiers stronger, a super strength serum if you like." He finally explained._

_A super strength serum? Did I hear him correctly? "And you want me to test this for you?" I asked him instead._

"_In a way." He replied, not really answering my question. "Do not worry about it though. The drug it perfectly safe and won't have any side effects."_

_I was immediately suspicious. They were testing a drug that didn't have any side effects? I found it hard to believe._

"_We will provide full training for you and you will have your own dorm room to sleep in; and, of course, you will have full meals every day."_

"_Is this a bribe?" I asked, still skeptical._

_The man smiled at me. What was so funny? "No, it is not a bribe. Think of it more as payment for testing this program with us. And of course, you will be paid again after the trail."_

_I quickly considered the odds. They were promising me full meals and good housing. It seemed better than what I saw of the sheds that I presumed they would have us stay in otherwise so after a final moment of consideration, I spoke. "Who's to say I won't die from the serum?" I asked._

"_We've done several tests on a number of people and, so far, none of them have had the result we were looking for. However, none of them suffered any long-term side effects. The worst was a high fever that was treated for and he recovered quickly." He replied quickly._

_I thought about it for another moment. If I didn't agree to their deal, it would g one of two ways. I'd either be sent back out with Filip, or things would go really nastily for me. Don't ask me where I got that from, but something was just horribly, horribly wrong about the situation. I looked up at the man and, making my decision, I nodded my head._

"_Welcome aboard." There was an awfully sick twist in the man's smile. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into but I needed to do whatever I could to keep out myself of trouble._

_I was immediately taken to a room to be 'coded'. I had no idea what it was at first, but soon realized that I was going to be tattooed. I tried to protest but when I thought about the consequences, I shut my mouth. I didn't want to get on anyone's bad side, so I obediently did as the officers told me. I took off my coat and pulled my shirt up to mid waist before lying down on the bench on my side. The man who was going to tattoo me pulled down my skirt a little bit so that my hipbone stuck out. There wasn't a 'are you ready' or a 'I'm going to begin'. The needle just began buzzing and dug into my skin. The pain was unbelievable, a stinging burn pulled at my skin for a torturous half hour. I managed to ignore it enough to stay quiet, biting on my coat sleeve throughout the whole experience and when I was done and I felt a bandage being fixed over the tattoo. I was given some time to recover, but I was soon asked to leave so that I could be taken to my dorm. _

_It was a plain room with a faded cream-coloured paint and wooden floors. A chest of drawers stood in the corner left of the door and a bed sat in front of it with its headboard against the opposite wall. A small desk with a single electric lamp stood parallel to it across the room. It was small, measuring at around three by four meters, but had a high ceiling making the room seem bigger than it actually was. A guard came in a while later with my suitcase. I quickly checked it to make sure I still had everything and I was glad to see nothing missing. I unpacked everything quickly, setting up my pens and paper on the table next to the lamp and putting my clothes into the small set of drawers. I unpacked my small dagger as well. My father had taught me to always be cautious and a hidden weapon, just for safety, came in handy more than a few times. I was glad I followed his advice and hid the blade in the back of one of the drawers along with the small wad of cash that I brought with me._

_Another guard came along not long after I had unpacked and told me to follow him. The two of us walked the halls of the hospital-like building and he took me to a large room that was full of training equipment and told me that someone would be coming to see me soon. His name was Julian Novak._


	5. Four

_He was a tall young man, maybe only a few years older than me. His hair a pleasant blonde and his eyes a soft blue, the kind of man that the ladies back in England would swoon over. He told me that he would be training me until I was ready for the serum. When I asked him about any other people who might be taking the drug around the same time as me, he told me that a guy who was staying across the hall from me was scheduled for testing in exactly a fortnight's time. He also told me a bit about the people in the camp, how most of the officers were German and that I would probably have to learn a bit of it to get by without being completely lost whenever someone opened their mouth._

_He was a brutal trainer, even on the first day, and by the end of it, I was stumbling around like a human jelly. I returned to my room, totally stripped of the energy I started the day with. As I fumbled with my doorknob, an arm wrapped itself around my waist, its owner helping me into my room and lying me down on my bed, pulling the covers over my body._

_"Dankeschön." I thanked him; my English/Chinese accent was thick and cringe worthy.__  
__"Sorry, I don't understand German." A Cockney accent replied.__  
__I shot up, immediately regretting it as my body moaned, groaned, complained and whined about my sudden movements. "You're English?" I asked.__  
__"Yes, and am I right to assume that you are as well?" he replied, grinning as if meeting me was the best thing that had happened to him all year.__  
__I nodded, smiling despite my tired state.__  
__"So you're part of the program too?" he asked.__  
__"I think so." I replied uncertainly. "I only got here today."__  
__"Ah, so you're the newbie then. Well, I'll show you around tomorrow night if you're up for it." He offered. "You look too tired for that today."__  
__"How did you guess?" I asked rhetorically.__  
__He just smiled warmly. "I'll be next door if you need anything."__  
__I simply nodded, my eyes already beginning to droop a bit. He bid me goodnight and I muttered something along the lines of a goodbye as he shut the door. But just as I was about to fall asleep, the door opened again and a head of dark brown hair popped in.__  
__"Um, by the way, I'm Thomas." He mentioned quickly, sounding shy as a kid on their first day of school.__  
__I weakly nudged an eye open, smiling a bit as I did. "Just call me Jen."__  
__"Alright then, Jen. Goodnight." He said before disappearing again, shutting the door before I had a chance to say anything. _

_The next morning, Thomas woke me up at 6:00 and explained all the morning routines; making my bed and cleaning my room before washing up for breakfast. (We had to brush our teeth before breakfast, as we would go straight to training afterwards.) There, he introduced me to the other program members or 'crew', as they liked to be called. There were seven members besides myself (I was the only girl), and another two before them; they had already completed the first stage of the program and had been moved to a different facility to continue their training under whatever conditions they required. I was immediately suspicious when I was told that the two previous members hadn't contacted them since leaving. It made me nervous and worried about what would happen to me but I brushed it off as I finished eating and we all split off to our separate training rooms._

_And so began my new life. I woke everyday at 6.00am sharp and cleaned up before making my way to the mess hall. Breakfast was always the rowdiest as everyone started the day at the same time. I ate with the crew (and the other soldiers) for half an hour before making my way to the 'gym', as I came to call it, for training. At two o'clock, we would stop for lunch and Julian and I would eat lunch together before going back to train some more. Most days, I didn't eat dinner. On the rare occasion that the trainer was feeling peckish before the session was finished, we would stop training early and go for a small meal. I rarely saw any of the other crewmembers at lunch or dinner. Their trainers had different schedules and ate at different times, meaning I really only socialized with anyone other than Julian in the morning. I couldn't call anyone since the program that I was on was 'top secret' and I didn't have time to visit the other camp mates, meaning I couldn't see Filip or any of his family. I asked if they could come to visit me, but I was told it would be too hard to find them in the camp. Auschwitz was like a city apparently._

_The trainer was determined to teach me as much as possible, as quickly as possible. I worked nonstop on making my body stronger and perfecting what my father had taught me before as well as the techniques that he taught me. The man was ruthless when it came to perfecting techniques. He knew almost everything about fighting, from the traditional boxing from Britain to some of the more intricate martial arts from Asia. He specialized in handling assault rifles so he was also intent on having me know how to handle guns as well. Of course, before coming to this place, I had never seen any kind of firearm and was quite nervous when he took me to a room with a box of shotguns, rifles and submachine guns. I tried my best to keep my terrified reactions under control every time a shot fired, but before an hour had passed in the indoor shooting range, I had broken into a complete panic attack. Julian was more lenient the first time around and let me return to physical training, but he wouldn't take any of it after that. It took everything I had to build the courage to pull the trigger, even with just a blank in the barrel. It took a while and a lot of frustration (mainly from Julian), but within a fortnight I, albeit only just, managed to learn how to handle a gun properly._

_Aside from the guns, Julian had also given me a number of traditional Asian swords and knives and taught me the arts behind them, thinking I would be able to relate to it easier and (in theory) learn faster. It surprised me to find out that he knew more about them than my father did. I had to admit, the man was a combat genius._

_I didn't have much spare time so I spent most of it meditating to help manipulate my mind into better dealing with the physical and mental stresses that came with the training. Otherwise I spent my time writing, but within the first week, I couldn't find any time to write anymore. In fact, before I had even hit a month at the camp, I had to give up some of my sleep to make time to meditate. That idea was eventually ditched. I couldn't meditate without the sleep anyway. My training became everything for me in the short period of four months, and in that time, I never went outside. I lived inside, reverting back to my old ways of being a hermit and turning myself into a training junkie._

_My clothing was quickly replaced. The first things that went were my bras. They were simply put away and I had to bind my chest with thick bandages. It was uncomfortable at first, but I quickly got used to it. Binding did make things easier for me. The tightened fabric around my chest kept everything together and I ended up bandaging my thighs, calves and forearms to just because it made it easier to train and it enhanced my fighting abilities as well. I obviously couldn't wear my dresses to training so I was given clothes that were designed to fit my body but could be stretched a bit. It was fascinating at first since but I didn't have time to marvel over the material. I had to train._

_At first, it was fine. I had enough resting time everyday, and I could balance everything out, but soon it became more and more intense. At the point where I had been at the camp for two months, I was spending seventeen hours per day on training alone and I was given two meals a day. I didn't notice at first, but the meals got smaller and smaller until I was given just a scoop of mashed potato, a couple stringy beans and two chicken drumsticks. Although it may seem sufficient, it wasn't enough to keep up with the training that I was doing. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to ask for more food, Julian told me, because it was rude. I didn't want to get on anyone's bad side; I was working for my country's enemy for god's sake._

_I still managed to get by, with Thomas's help. He was the only one I really talked to and we often visited each other to talk after a day of training. Thinking about it, being able to talk to someone was the best way to relieve stress. Tom and I relied on each other for support and I was glad to have him to talk to in the mornings and on those late nights, but I knew that was going to be taken away from me soon. Every week, the oldest member wouldn't turn up at breakfast and a new member would take his place the following morning._

_For some reason, I never really thought that Tom was going to be one of them until he was gone. I wanted to check his room to see what he did, where he came from, who his friends were and also keep his stuff for him on the small chance that he might be the first of the crew to come back, but his room was cleared by the time I got there that night; and that was the end of Tom. I had no idea how I got by without him. I must have gone insane without realizing it because I managed to carry on. I didn't try to look for anyone else to replace him and I ended up distancing myself from the rest of the crew. They weren't happy with it to say the least, but they didn't try to force me back into the circle either. They gave me my space and probably brushed it off as stress or fatigue. Or they might have known that the two of us were close and I wasn't taking the loss of my friend too well. I only knew him for two months, but we'd grown close over that short time. I realize that now, but back then, I refused to acknowledge that. Instead, I ignored everything and focused on training. Before I knew it, I had been turned into a killing machine, designed to perfect the art of assassination. My daily schedule turned into training, eating, training, more training, eating, training, even more training and sleep before I woke up and did it all again. My body quickly became tired of the strenuous cycle but despite my subconscious' protests, I pushed on. I'm sure that my mind decided to simply give up on getting me to rest and just ignored the stress instead._

"I don't mean to interrupt, sir, but Ms. Huang's file has been successfully unlocked." JARVIS spoke up.  
Jenwei, who was still getting used to the automated voice, jumped in her seat, causing both men to chuckle. She sent them a glare, but they only laughed harder. The philanthropist got up and strode over to a screen to open the file, telling the two others to continue with their chat.

The file issued by SHIELD was extremely brief and vague. Only explanations of stats and defects were provided, but nothing on her actual condition. Finding nothing of use to him, he then pulled up and old HYDRA file that had been written by Dr. Erskine himself (some time after his arrival in America and privately passed on to Howard Stark for safe keeping) that JARVIS had been busy translating and read through the details there.

The details written in the second file were much more detailed. They described the process and the equipment used to 'operate' on the girl, monitoring of her training sessions recorded in detail were copied and saved in the file, and most importantly, her condition. Every defect, effect and asset was documented in excruciating detail with consequences of each also written down.

Tony didn't like a thing he read and before he even reached half way, he closed it and strode back over, ready to announce that it was a decoy and the 'real' file was being tracked, but was interrupted as JARVIS announced the arrival of the two SHIELD field agents and the Director. Finding it a convenient cover-up, he immediately responded excitedly to the announcement and insisted that the girl should meet the two agents.

Before she could protest, she was dragged upstairs and taken to the conference room. There was some struggle and negotiation, all of which were ignored by the billionaire, before the girl was shoved through the doorway, causing her to stumble. She recovered, shooting a glare at the man and Bruce simply chuckled at the pair.

"Ms. Huang, I see you've decided to join us." Fury greeted her.  
"Um, yes sir. Mr. Stark suggested that I become acquainted with the other members of your team." She replied quietly.  
"Good idea seeing as you'll be part of the team too." Fury added.  
There was a moment of silence that passed between the girl and the Director before a sound of confusion came from the former. "Sorry?"  
"You'll be working on the Avengers Initiative." He repeated himself.  
"Th-"  
"You're joking." Tony cut the girl off.  
The Director raised an eyebrow at the man. "Excuse me?"  
"You're not serious about putting her in the Avengers team are you?" he asked again.  
Nick frowned. "No, I am completely serious about putting her in. I'm actually surprised that you're not overjoyed at the idea judging by the amount of time you spend with her."  
"Are you kidding me right now? You know exactly why you can't put her in!" He cried, visibly frustrated by the idea.  
"Sorry Mr. Stark, but I'm getting the idea that you know something I don't." The director said, leaning in and clasping his hands together on the desk.  
Tony glared at the man, realizing he'd been put in a tight corner. A very tight corner that he had no way of wriggling his way out of without telling the truth. After a short moment of contemplation, he turned to the ivory girl. "Jenny, do you mind stepping outside for a moment?" He asked her.  
A frown crossed said girl features. "Yes I do. I may have not known you for long, Mister Stark, but I can tell that what you're about to tell them is about me and I want to know what that is."  
The billionaire heaved a breath. This was exactly what he didn't want. "Can I talk to you late-"  
"No, I want to know now." She cut him off. Her eyes pierced into his, desperate to know whatever information he was withholding from her.  
"Alright, but you might want to sit down." He eventually caved.

The original 20-minute briefing went three hours overtime. Tony listed everything he remembered from the files and had Jarvis pull up some of the less graphic visuals. Steve left half-way to get a glass of water, but took a while to return. It was unusual of him, but everyone else made a connection of some sort and understood. After all, he only became what he was today through the various tortures that Jenwei had to endure. He was seen as a hero and a savior, while Jenwei had been reduced to nothing more than a lab experiment; and whilst Steve had come very close to being one himself, he was lucky enough to avoid it. Jenwei, on the other hand, was a plaything from the get-go.

Tony explained that her power was limited. Unlike Steve, who basically had it stowed away until he needed it, Jenwei was given enough to only last her two short months. A soldier would've been given eight months worth. If they were to be captured or injured, it gave them enough to survive until they could make it back to safety. Jenwei, however, was a mere prototype. They didn't see the need to supply her with any more than they needed to see and intended to only keep her around for those two months before ridding themselves of her. So they gave her 720hours of fight. Tony already did the math. He had Jarvis work out how long she'd been tested and added the extra half hour cool down that used up the serum after each session. He concluded that she had little over thirteen hours, which was nine one-hour-long uses, including the time it took to cool down. So long as she used her power as little as possible, she would probably live to an old age. Probably.

The last thing to be shown was the method that was used for Jenwei's transformation. Tony purposely turned down the volume several notches before playing the video. It was at this point that Steve returned. As the video played, Jenwei replayed the scene from her point of view inside her head. She remembered it all, clear as day up till when her memory blacked out. She watched closely as her old form walked onto into sight, her hair used to be a beautiful black, and although the video was in black and white, she could recognize the healthy tan on her skin. She always prided herself in her natural appearance, although she was never keen on telling anyone about it. Minutes later, she was watching herself bucking wildly on the screen. Tony had been sure to keep a close eye on her during the video so he could stop it as soon as something triggering came up. He had no idea she couldn't remember anything from then on. Her struggle lasted another five minutes, in which the scientists had come up multiple times and injected more liquid into her.

That was until she managed to break the restraints on her. One of the men off camera had picked up a gun and shot her trice in the torso until she fell over and off the table in a bloody heap. At this point, Jenwei was handling it suprisingly well, until Dr. Erskine walked on screen with a revolver in his hand.


	6. Five

She stood abruptly with her eyes still glued to the screen. Tony paused the video and Bruce, who was closest to her, stood as well, facing her and reaching out to put a reassuring hand on her arm.

"He shot me." She managed, barely above a whisper, her voice breaking as she went. Then, out of nowhere, she tore her arm out of the doctor's grip and her voice raised to a maximum. "He shot me! The sodding bastard lied to me! He told me he was a friend!" She made to lunge at the screen, barely restrained by Bruce and Natasha who were closest to her. Natasha held her arms still as Bruce pressed her back into his chest, wrapping his arms around her tightly and, to his surprise, she simply collapsed in his grasp. He had imagined she would have resisted him as much as she could and gone off on a mad manhunt for someone who was already long gone but instead here she was, too shocked to do anything but lie pliant in his arms.

Steve, although with a somewhat changed view of her since he left the meeting for 'a glass of water', sat quietly in the corner and internally fought with himself to not say something about her calling his friend a liar. Steve knew the doctor well and he knew that the man was anything but a liar. But in the situation given, he forced himself to bite his tongue. She was volatile and being just as strong as him, possibly stronger since she hadn't been given a stable version of the serum, there was a possibility she'd destroy the entire building if she was provoked.

By this time, Bruce was sitting on the floor quietly cradling the shocked woman. In all honesty, she was still just a girl. She'd only lived twenty-two years; it was hardly a life experience. Hell, from what he'd heard, she hadn't even kissed anyone. It was a stupid little thing, he realized, but love was something almost everyone in this world strove for. He remembered when he loved someone, and it was taken away from him. The pain he felt and the self-hatred that followed was different to Jenwei's. She lost someone completely before she even got to know them as much as he got to know Betty. She had worked hard to set up a life that she knew she would love and before she could even get a proper taste, she was thrown into a new one.

When she had calmed down enough, Bruce led her to her room and decided to help distract her with the desktop computer Tony had provided for her. He introduced her to the Internet and YouTube and they surfed through multiple videos. Although she was still rather inexperienced at using the actual technology, she was able to navigate her way through the site and before long, she and Bruce ended up having a movie marathon, mainly ones starring Fred Astaire. At some point, Jenwei had fallen asleep on Bruce's shoulder, wrapped up and snuggled in her blanket and snoring softly. Deciding it was a good time to sneak away, he positioned her in a more comfortable manner for sleeping on her bed, turned off the computer and snuck out quietly.

The ivory haired girl was not seen the next day. Instead, she was holed up in her room, filtering through music videos on her computer like a teenager would. One artist who she became an immediate fan of, was Beyonce. Although she didn't understand the message or attire in 'Single Ladies', she quite enjoyed 'Halo' and a good deal of other ballads. Upon find this out around dinnertime the following night, Tony immediately offered to get her VIP tickets to the singer's next concert.

Of course, being the courteous person that she was, Jenwei immediately declined. In hindsight, it was for the better. Concerts had changed greatly over the last seventy years. They never really fit into little halls anymore, or focused mainly on a vocal performance. No, from what Jenwei had gathered from the various videos, concerts were huge shows with tens of thousands of people crammed in stadiums all cheering and screaming at the same time and the stages themselves spewed fire at random intervals and the music was loud enough to be heard from miles away. The little lady from Yumen was much too unaccustomed for such show, even a little terrified of it.

"So how have you been holding up?" the billionaire asked, changing the subject completely. He'd been avoiding it up to this point, but it needed to be said.  
"Not as well as I'd like to admit," was the woman's simple reply. "Dr. Erskine was the only friend I had there," she said quietly, "In hindsight, it might have been done out of fear as apposed to an act of pure brutality. I'm still unwilling to believe that he could have been that heartless,"  
"Well, that's not too bad then, now is it?" Tony asked, rubbing the ivory girl's shoulder kindly and giving and equally warm smile.  
"No, I suppose not," Jenwei replied.  
"Now, you've been holed up in your room for way too long so if you'd like, you can join me and Bruce down in the labs and we can have some more story-telling fun or you can blow stuff up with us," he offered, although, it wasn't so much of an offer as a strong suggestion.  
However, Jenwei didn't feel to be in the mood for chatting about with other people. "I think I'd like a little more time alone if that's alright with you,"  
Tony stood still for a moment in contemplation before he nodded, making a hum of approval and patting her shoulder. "Well, you know where to find us if you need us," was all he said before he swiveled on his heel with his dinner (consisting of a large mug of coffee) and made for the lift.  
The woman gave a timid wave, to which the billionaire responded to with a similar action as the doors of the elevator closed between them.

Jenwei turned back to the pot of tea that she'd made before her (rather long) chat with Tony, only to find that it had gone cold. Disappointment and frustration crossed her face as she realised she'd need to make a new pot. She had no qualms about the effort required to make a new pot, but wasting the drink irritated her to no end. Then a random stroke of genius hit her. The microwave! Maria had tried to explain how it worked back on the Hellicarrier and none of it had made much sense but from what she could remember, if one simply placed their item of food inside, set the time and waited for the little bell to ring, their food would be heated.

The Chinese lady poured her tea into a mug with some milk and sugar and gave it a good stir before placing it in the metal box. That part was straightforward enough, but when it came to setting the time, the ivory girl had no idea what to do. She stood before the magical metallic box for several minutes, contemplating on exactly how the touch buttons worked. By the time five minutes had passed, she'd jammed in several random numbers in her attempt to work the machine. She didn't even care for how long the microwave would heat her drink, she just wanted it to start. She fussed over the metal box for several minutes more, not even noticing the arrival of the collected American hero as he strode in, looking for a bite to eat.

He watched quietly as the girl challenged herself to working out the mechanics of the touch interface of the microwave for about a minute before he grew tired of the show. Tony had updated the typical microwave and introduced additional functions for things such as roasting a whole turkey or defrosting a leg of ham. So many functions, in fact, that it required it's own menu of functions. Steve pushed her out of the way, roughly sliding the 'timer' screen back the to the 'action' screen, similarly to how one would change screens on the menu of an iPhone, and hitting the start button before making off with his sandwich.

Jenwei was about to thank him but the blonde man had stormed off before she had a chance to say anything. On top of that, the microwave was now making crackling noises. She had no idea what was going on, but she could only assume that it was normal for microwaves to do this. And the miniature lightning storm going on inside was putting on quite something in terms of entertainment. Well, that was until thick, black smoke started to rise from the mechanism. Panic set in almost immediately and she attempted to open the door to pour something over whatever was causing the fire.

She was not prepared, however, to have several hundred watts of electricity shot up her arm when she managed to yank the door open slightly. She jerked her swollen limb back from the metal box, the rest of her body following it in the same general direction. She thought to tend to her arm, but the assault of the lightning storm and the black smoke had not ceased and her body immediately went into fight mode. The serum recognised the fight-or-flight hormones kicked her heartrate up to pump the blood through her system faster. In the back of her mind she faintly recognised the sound of an alarm of some kind. Her mind set into a state of panic and her first instinct was to throw the metal box across the room.

The box was heavier than appearances would make it out to be and with the added hindrance of the ongoing electrical discharge from the microwave, the pale woman had a hard time picking it off the bench at all, but when she did, she used as much force as she could muster as her muscles spasmed under the electrical influence to throw the box into the opposite wall, creating a sizable crater. Needless to say, with the fire alarm going off and the very loud crash, it was not long before the whole team had gathered in the kitchen to find a very frightened Jenwei huddled in the corner furthest from the deformed metallic box that once was a microwave as she attempted to cradle her swollen and hypersensitive arms in her equally swollen and hypersensitive hands. Some areas had been burnt to a point where they were now gaping, open wounds. In other areas, it seemed that the capillaries in her skin had simply burst and were leaking blood from her pores.

Tony was immediately over the still fuming microwave, putting the fire out with an extinguisher while Natasha called for an ambulance. Bruce, being the only one with a medical history, was the first to act. He ran forward to the woman and began barking instructions to everyone else to get first aid equipment as he kneeled down to look over her injuries.  
"No!" Jenwei's voice came in a rough cough, causing everyone to come to a standstill. A few moments passed as Jenwei attempted to regain her breath and slow her heart rate down. "I'll be fine. The serum does a weird thing that fixes me. I'll be fine," she promised, taking large gulps of air between every few words.  
"But the blood-" Bruce started.  
"It's normal," the ivory girl cut him off, lifting a hand to pat his knee as though he was the one who needed comforting more than her. The doctor was acutely aware of the fact that the swelling had begun to go down, and in record time as well, "I'll be fine, I promise,"  
"I still want to bandage you though. Just to be sure. And maybe put on a little cream," he spoke to her quietly.  
Jenwei simply offered a tired smile and a reluctant sigh. "If it will make you feel any better about it, Dr. Banner, then feel free to tend to the wound. I doubt very much of it will be left of it by the morning though,"

In an hour's time, when Bruce had insisted on replacing the salve and wrapping, all swelling and redness had gone down completely and the burn and singe marks around the wound had also faded considerably. Bruce was surprised; not completely baffled, but still surprised. If her recovery would progress at such a rate, then Jenwei's word would hold true and she would make a full recovery by morning.

Tony had investigated the site of the accident to figure out exactly what had gone wrong and was somewhat amused to find that the cause of the 'miniature electrical storm', as Jenwei had described it, was due to her leaving the spoon in her mug. It was a stupid little thing, but how was she to know?

"So how are you feeling?" Bruce asked, sitting at the end of her bed after checking up on everything.  
"Alright, a little bored I suppose," Jenwei replied.  
"How did you know you would heal from something like that so quickly?" Bruce pried.  
"They tested on me before," she shrugged. "There were some poison tests as well, but the serum rejected everything it needed to and mended any damage,"  
The kind-natured man had to take in a deep breath before he could continue. The woman in front of her was just implying that she had been cut open and poisoned for the sake of seeing her heal herself with no medical assistance. Just the idea alone angered him to no end. How dare they. How _dare_ they hurt her. He stopped his thoughts and reminded himself to breathe, lest he end up hurting her if he Hulked out.  
"And the bleeding from the pores thing is normal?" he prompted.  
"Happens every time," the ivory girl replied with a somewhat chipper tone.  
"And what about what happened the other day?" the doctor asked, trying to find out where she stood on the matter. He was as much concerned for her mental health as he was for her physical health. "You're doing okay?"  
"I think I'll be alright. I have faith that whatever he did was for the best; and perhaps there are other reasons for him to have had the gun in his hand. After all, there are a number of things that could have happened off camera," she replied quietly.  
Finding no reason to snoop any further, Bruce simply nodded and told her to get some sleep.

The following day was quiet to say the least. Pepper and Tony were in Dubai for a meeting of some kind, Bruce had been asked to advise at some kind of a science conference, Clint and Natasha were assigned another mission (though they were expected back by the end of the week at most), leaving Steve and Jenwei alone in the tower for the day.

Jenwei had found a copy of Lord of the Rings trilogy in one of the bookshelves and picked a sunny spot by the giant windows in the living area while Steve busied himself with his notebook at the opposite end of the windows. As she read, she became highly conscious of the fact that the man not far from her had been very stiff in her presence. Whenever she left to make more tea or go to the bathroom, she was acutely aware of the man's eyes following her around the room.

In turn, she would delay her return as much as possible or curl herself tighter into her white armchair and attempt to make herself as inconspicuous as she could. She was highly uncomfortable to say the least. So uncomfortable, in fact, that she began to loose interest in her book and grow frustrated as she had to re-read that same page for the twentieth time and at some point, she found herself setting the book down and clearing her throat to catch the man's attention.  
"Mister Rogers,"  
The blonde patriot looked up from his notebook and raised his eyebrows at her as though she had only just caught his attention when he knew full well that his mind had been fixed on her for quite some time now. "Can I help you?"  
"It's come to my attention that my presence is bringing you discomfort," she stated simply.  
Steve hesitated momentarily at the straightforward question, but cleared his throat and replied, "Yeah, you do,"  
The woman wasn't surprised by the response, but still raised an eyebrow at the bluntness. "And may I ask exactly what it is that irritates you?"  
Steve momentarily hesitated again, "I don't trust you. Stark can say what he wants to say about me being sinophobic, but I just don't like you,"

Jenwei was honestly stunned. Sinophobic? _That_ was why? "Right then," she replied curtly, picking up her book and standing, "at least we've come to an understanding," and with that, she strode off to her room. She could understand him to some extent. Phobias were irrational fears, not boundaries formed through reasoning and analysis. Still, it didn't mean she couldn't be upset about it.

She reached her room and shut the door behind her, louder than she intended to, although she couldn't deny that the action hadn't made her feel a little better. She pulled out the various pins and hair-ties that kept her hair in a neat bun and allowed it to fall over her face and shoulders in a feral mess as she fell into her bed with a long groan. For several minutes she laid there, moving numerous times and frequently shifting out of pure irritation. A lot of people didn't like Asians, she knew that very well. But why did it annoy her so much? It's not like a little over fifty years is going to create a huge change in acceptance of other races or cultures right? Sure, they might get hired more often now, but did that mean that they were more socially accepted right?

Jenwei groaned and rolled over again. She was a fool to believe that they would just accept her like that. Maria turned out to be a better liar than she initially believed. She was a spy after all. Or… was it that she worked for an espionage establishment? She groaned again and sat herself up. She needed to clear her head and was much to think about. She'd allowed herself to simply ignore the incident around Dr. Erskine and she needed to think of how she could make being around Mister Rogers a pleasant, or at least bearable, experience. Yes, there was much thinking to be done indeed.

Perhaps it was due time for her to take a long walk, she needed the air.

* * *

**Author's note:** Hi guys! So I'm not actually dead and neither is this story. More updates are coming your way, I promise! I've just been very busy with school and very sick at the same time. Hospitals and stuff were involved so it was a very messy and unpleasant experience. Sorry for the 5 month delay between updates (holy hell, that's a long time)!

Please do leave me a little comment to let me know what you think. I do try to shape the story to your liking so your comments are very important to me! Speaking of comments, I realise I've neglected to thank you guys for commenting at all, so thank you all very, very much!

FraulineTraumer: Yes, the Chinese were on the Allied side and you're right in that Jim should have been in a concentration camp, but he's a canon character in the Captain America/Avengers universe and a member of the Howling Commandos so.. yeah. And yes, things between the Americans and Japanese were _really_ bad back then, but keep in mind that it's a phobia, meaning it's an irrational fear. Cap just doesn't like Chinese people (in my story at least). I hope that cleared up any confusion!


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